Tag: Elijah

Look and Listen; See and Hear

Psalm 99:4-5 “O mighty God, lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.” Proclaim the greatness of our God … Abba God is the Holy One.

Introduction

We lose our way. Sometimes we roam from one room of the house to another forgetting why we entered the room we just entered, wondering where our phone is while using its flashlight to look for it, unable to find the glasses that are on our face. To lose our way is human; our memories (even at their best) aren’t that good. Have you ever had that experience where you are certain you remember exactly how a story goes or what a person looks like, only to find out that you don’t remember that story/that person as well as you thought?

Sometimes we lose our focus thus our way concerning what’s important in the world. We become caught in and trapped by (enslaved to?) our ideologies, worshipping them while forsaking God and other human beings. We get lost in trying to carve out our space in the kingdom of humanity, adhering to the lies of “The life-hack life,” “the grind-mindset life,” “the girl-boss life,” “the dog-eat-dog life,” “the last-one-standing-gets-everything” life, the “austerity” life….all of these not only take from us—slowly diminishing the allure of our God-given human glory and dignity—but lead us down paths and to locations that are down-right opposed toward keeping human life human.[1]

We lose our ways even spiritually. We can deconstruct and demythologize ourselves and the world to the point where there’s nothing of substance under our feet, just a voracious and insatiable void sucking everything—and everyone—into it offering no solutions or answers just more and more questions. We lose our ways, wandering from creativity and dreams of “better than this” and “possibly”. We become trapped in the material reality of the world, forgetting the spiritual still exists whether you believe it or not. We wander from God, lured by our hubris, cash, diplomas, and power convinced we are the masters of our own destinies.

Sometimes we lose our way because the way, our way, the path we were on is taken from us, stripped out from under our feet; what was known and steady is now unfamiliar and irregular. Everything feels confusing, comfort is lost, trust and safety are challenged, vulnerability skyrockets and defenses go up. This was a violent disruption, a chaos eruption. What’s to come? *shrug*

So, humans lose their ways—in one form or another, from one degree to another. And sometimes we need to be lovingly interrupted and become reoriented to the present, to feel the coolness and comfort of the cloud descending upon us, and become still long enough to hear the divine voice call to us to listen, to look, and to touch the one who is with us even in the midst of this…

Luke 9:28-36

But while [Peter] was saying these things a cloud occurred and was enveloping them. And they were afraid while they entered into the cloud. And a voice sounded from the cloud saying, “This one is my son, the one who has been picked out [for/by me]; listen to him.” (Luke 9:34-35)[2]

In our gospel passage we come face to face with a story telling us who Jesus is (again). This story exists outside of our intellectual and rational grasp; we may feel the trap of trying to trivialize the story, to make it about us, drawing too tight of a correlation between Peter’s (appropriate) verbal bumbling and our understanding of good discipleship (i.e. disciples can’t stay on the mountain top, they must come back down the mountain and travel along the valleys). We should resist this temptation. [3] It may seem counterintuitive to resist this temptation, for what negative could come from seeing ourselves in this story and subsequently applying it to our lives? Well, while I love you tons and God loves all of us even more, not every story is about us. In other words, if we make it about us and our discipleship, we will miss what God is telling us through Luke about Jesus.

According to the details of this story and who shows up to stand with and speaks about Jesus, Luke really wants his reader to think about the great event of the Exodus (back in the book of Exodus with Moses, Israel, Pharoah, and an Angel of Death) and keep in mind the very recent event of Jesus’s baptism back in chapter 3 (where the divine voice declared Jesus to be God’s son and, also, exhorted the audience to listen to him).[4] So, for Luke, Jesus is beginning another journey; whereas Jesus’s baptism signified the beginning of his public ministry, this event signifies the beginning of the work to be done in and thru Jerusalem to his death[5] on the cross.[6]

Now, I know I said that this isn’t really about us, but we are impacted by this knowledge. Luke’s point to his audience (thus to us) is that the one walking with them—through all that lies ahead—is none other than the one who is equivalent to Moses and Elijah, [7],[8] the one who is the son of the God of liberation, of love, or life, the son of God who defends the oppressed. [9] By focusing on Jesus, Luke turns the head of his audience to look [10] and see[11], to remember that no matter what is coming, Jesus, the son of God, the incarnate Word of God, goes with them no matter if it’s into the darkness of the tomb and death of Good Friday or into the unfamiliar and irregular of the new creation of Easter’s Resurrected life.[12]

But it’s not only important for Luke that his audience see who Christ is, but that they hear, too, who this Jesus is they’ve been following thus far.[13] This isn’t an event being orchestrated by human ingenuity or reason, it’s a divine event and God, Abba God, is the one whose loving, life-giving, liberative hand is behind it. Thus, Jesus is not just any person or some good teacher and sage; Jesus is this God’s son,[14] Jesus of Nazareth is the son of their God, the one who liberated their fore parents from Egypt, the one who sides with the oppressed. So, for Luke, this Jesus is to be listened to because he is reliable[15] and because an exodus is coming again.[16] Jesus, like Moses and God through Moses before him, will be liberating the captives from all forms of captivity; [17] yet this time the scale of liberation is bigger and includes liberation from death.[18] Luke provides for his audience a crystal clear picture in the midst of the cloud on the mountain top: what’s to come is going to feel more like losing one’s way than knowing where one is going, but don’t lose heart, the one who goes ahead and among you is God of very God. They will need this picture, experience, seeing and hearing so that they can walk through the chaos, tumult, and darkness to come.

Conclusion

I’ll take back what I said at the beginning about this story not being about us. It is. We should identify—very much—with the disciples, with Luke’s audience. We should see ourselves being addressed by the divine voice speaking from the cloud, addressed by the showing up of Moses and Elijah, and addressed by who Jesus is. We are to look and see, to listen and hear who this one is. We should feel the cool mist as we are enveloped in the cloud that is descending upon the mountain, taking into it all who stand there: Jesus, Moses and Elijah (even as they are leaving), the disciples, and us, Luke’s very distant audience. Why should we see ourselves incorporated in and addressed here in an ancient text and far-out story?

Because we lose our ways. Either because we’ve lost focus or because our way has been yanked out from under us and everything is now very upside down, we need to see and hear again who this Jesus is we claim to follow, the one who is the fullness of our justification and righteousness by faith alone, the one who is the physical manifestation of God who is, according to the bible, the God of liberation and freedom, the God of the divine revolution of love and life.[19] And in accepting that we are being addressed we begin to find our way again, we can begin to focus again, we can be reoriented toward God because of our orientation toward Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit and, thusly, toward each other in love.[20]

[1] Paul Lehmann, Ethics in a Christian Context

[2] Translation mine unless otherwise noted

[3] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 126. BAD POINT “…the point being that just as peter was inclined to build booths and to remain on the mountaintop but had to return to the valley, true disciples have to be willing to descend from the mountaintop to the valley, there to communicate their mountaintop experience to others.” Trivialization of an awesome gospel event and pedestrianizes it into an “example” and ignores that Luke says the disciples didn’t say anything.

[4] Gonzalez, Luke, 126. “There is little doubt that in the Gospel write’s mind this story is closely connected with Exodus 24:12-18 (Moses on Mount Sinai) and Luke 3:21-22 (the baptism of Jesus).”

[5] Gonzalez, Luke, 127. “In the transfiguration, while the emphasis lies on the power and glory of Jesus, there is also a reminder of his death, as we are told that Moses and Elijah were discussing his ‘departure’ (again, his ‘exodus’). Coming immediately after Jesus’s announcement of his sufferings and death, the transfiguration is thus a reminder that in spite of all outward signs of defeat and powerlessness, Jesus is ultimately more powerful than death and than the political and religious authorities in Jerusalem.”

[6] Gonzalez, Luke, 126. “On the latter, just as the baptism of Jesus marks the beginning of his public ministry, now the transfiguration marks the beginning of the journey to Jerusalem. In both cases, a voice from heaven (or from a cloud) affirms the unique relationship of Jesus with God, and thus endorses his ministry, actions, and teachings.”

[7] Gonzalez, Luke, 126-127. “On the former, there is a clear attempt in the choice of words of the passage to show that at Jesus is no less a figure than Moses (and Elijah), and that his experience at the mountaintop is parallel to Moses’ experience on Mount Sinai.”

[8] Gonzalez, Luke, 127. “The two figures of Moses and Elijah clearly represent the Law and the Prophets, a common way of referring to the totality of Scripture….Thus the text shows Jesus to be at least the equal of Moses and Elijah, and certainly invested with the authority of God so that his teachings are inspired: ‘This is my Son, my Chosen’ listen to him.’”

[9] Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname, translated by Donald D. Walsh (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2010), 282-283. “they asked me why Moses and Elijah appeared, and I said that Moses was a the great liberator of the people, that he brought them out of Egyptian slavery, and Elijah was a great prophet, a defender of the poor and the oppressed, when Israel again fell into slavery, with social classes. Both of them were closely identified with the Messiah, for it had been said that the Messiah would be a second Moses and that Elijah would come back to earth to denounce injustices as a precursor of the Messiah…”

[10] Joel B. Green The Gospel of Luke The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 377. “Luke’s transfiguration scene places a premium on the motif of sight.”

[11] Green, Luke, 381. “This emphasis on seeing illuminates the transfiguration scene from the vantage point of the apostles, with Luke’s focus set on the significance of this event for them. At the same time, Luke invites his audience to share their viewpoint through the use of ‘Look!’”

[12] Gonzalez, Luke, 128. “The roller-coaster experience of the disciples is also ours. Are we the Easter people, or are we the people of the cross? Both! And neither is of any significance without the other. At the same time that we celebrate the victory of Jesus—and our own—we must never forget his cross—nor eschew our own. There are ‘transfiguration moments’ in Christian experience and in the life of the church; but they neither abolish nor diminish the need for the cross.”

[13] Green, Luke, 377. “From ‘seeing,’ then, the narrative turns to ‘hearing’ (vv 35-36a), after which, we are informed, the apostles told no one what they had ‘seen.’ Luke thus works in this scene with an understanding that is common in biblical narration—namely, ‘unaided human intellect cannot grasp history’s significance. One who reckons to understand the past implies a claim to God-given insight into the matter.’ The divine word illuminates; hence we may follow the narrative from the ‘seeing but not perceiving’ of vv. 28-34 to the ‘seeing and (beginning the process of) perceiving’ in v. 36. The whole scene is thus cast as a moment of revelation.”

[14] Green, Luke, 382. “…the encasement of Jesus’ mission in the language of exodus reminds us that, whatever shape it takes, that mission is grounded in the purpose of God to bring liberation from bondage. Through the journey Jesus is undertaking, release from the constraints of demonization, from the darkness of satanic intent, and from the diverse expressions of diabolic power, whether in disease or in social marginalization or in the patronal ethics of the Roman world, will be effected.”

[15] Green, Luke, 384. “…god speaks not to Jesus but to these representative followers, underscoring for them Jesus’ status. Form an unimpeachable source, Jesus has been identified for them; as a consequence of this divine confirmation, they should regard his words, including his teaching on his destiny and the concomitant nature of discipleship…as reliable.”

[16] Green, Luke, 378. “For Luke, if not for historiographers in general, this was due to his notion that historical events are divinely guided. This means that the Evangelist will have seen in the mission of Jesus a virtual, divinely oradin3d, reenactment of the exodus from bondage.”

[17] Green, Luke, 379. “…the transfiguration scene calls upon this choir of voices especially to stress the image of Jesus as liberator from bondage, his ministry as one of release from captivity in all its guises.”

[18] Green, Luke, 379. “These internal reverberations are important for what they emphasize about this scene—namely, the way it (a) summarizes critical issues related to Jesus’ status in relation of to God, (b) proleptically alerts representative apostles to the full significance of his heavenly status, and (c) supplies the apostles (and Luke’s audience) with an interpretive framework for making sense of the ensuing narrative, including the fulfillment of Jesus’ predicted suffering and death.”

[19] Cardenal, Solentiname, 284. “I: ‘In the Bible, God appears fundamentally like the God of Exodus, which is like saying the God of freedom. The prophet Amos says that the Exodus of Israel was not the only one and that Yahweh had brought other peoples out of other slaveries. Which is like saying that Yahweh is the God of every revolution.”

[20] Cardenal, Solentiname, 285. “I: ‘Christ is the Word of God made flesh on earth, the message of God that we should love one another. That’s the word that the cloud says we must hear.’”

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Up the Mountain and Down Again

Psalm 99:2-4 God is great in Zion; God is high above all peoples. Let them confess God’s Name, which is great and awesome; God is the Holy One. “O mighty [and royal], lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob.”

Introduction

Sometimes I wonder how often we include ourselves in the proclamation from the gospel of John: God so loved the world in this way, God sent God’s only son. We completely ignore that we are, have been, and will be invited in to the divine party we eagerly watch from outside, faces pressed against window panes, unable to hear the summons and invitation to the party because of the loud ruckus in our own heads. We can’t imagine hearing the summons and invitation. God loves the world, sure; but, does God love me?

I think we get trapped in our curiosity, wondering why God would love me? I mean, it makes sense that God would love you, you are just loveable. But me? Nah. I’m a huge bag of mess and not quite good enough to be truly and really loved by God. Even if I try to comprehend the idea that maybe God loves me, I will probably justify that potential love with some my productivity: maybe God loves me because I’m special in this way? maybe God loves me because of my talent? because I’m quite good at _______? Or, maybe God loves me because God has to…

Would I ever dare to think that God loves me just cuz? That God desires and wants me… just cuz? Love and desire untethered to a reason, a why, or wherefore. What the mystic Meister Eckhart (the mid 13th/early 14th century catholic theologian) calls the sunder warumbe: without a why or wherefore (as translated by Dorothee Sölle). We are hard wired to put justifications and reasons on why we do x and why we do z, because the world demands we justify our actions, our bodies, our being, our existence, and whom we love. But when it comes to love, to desire, to the lover being with the beloved these reasons and justifications fall flat. Love just loves. Love just is. Love loves the beloved (full stop).

Love wants to be with the beloved, close to the beloved, in all the profoundness and banality of the beloved, even when the beloved says silly things out of fear and reverence surrounded by bright light and dense cloud, accompanied by Moses and Elijah and two other disciples. Love goes with us, up the mountain and back down.

Matthew 17:1-9

And behold! Moses appeared to them and Elijah was talking with him. And Peter took up the conversation and said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will make here three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah…” Yet, while he was speaking, behold! a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold! a voice out from the cloud saying “This one is my son, the beloved, in whom I am well-pleased. You listen to him!”[1]

The story of Jesus’s transfiguration is well known. It’s a powerful story, and Matthew does an excellent job demonstrating the intersection of divine glory and human frailty. The story of Jesus’s transfiguration as told by Matthew might be my favorite example of Peter being wonderfully Peter: totally human. In fact, the flow from chapter 16 to chapter 17 works well. These two chapters demonstrate the variability of Peter’s humanity, from profound insight that is a near mountain-top experience, to being chastised for rebuking Jesus’s prophetic utterances about the trajectory of his ministry that is like an experience of being dropped down the backside of the mountain. So it goes for the one on whom Jesus will build his church: full of both great and not so great moments. Not everything Peter does is infallible—at least not at this point in church history!

In Chapter 17, Peter is one of the three who go with Jesus up the high-mountain, to the heights of the intersection of heaven and earth; maybe Peter wondered if something divine would happen, wasn’t his religious history replete with stories of divine encounter on such mountaintops?[2] The reader probably has more information than Peter does considering that Matthew makes frequent overlapping references between Moses and Jesus,[3] leading the reader to draw the connection between Moses and Jesus’s authority to interpret the law.[4]And even hints that Jesus might even be better than Moses.[5]

But for Peter and his two friends, this is all unfolding before them. As they ascend the mountain, they witness Jesus transfigured by bright light and his clothes radiated the same bright light (Jesus doesn’t change forms, he remains the same Jesus).[6] And as they are taking in Jesus’s divine glowing transfiguration, Moses and Elijah show up! And Elijah is talking with Moses and then… Peter. Peter literally inserts himself, he “took up the conversation” and asks Jesus if he should build some tents. Far from being ridiculous request, it made sense; the glory of God shines about him and two of God’s divine prophets show up and why not make tents? Isn’t that where the glory of God dwells?[7] In tents and tabernacles? And then, just as he took hold of the conversation, God takes it back and declares that this one, Jesus, is God’s son and all should listen to him. Immediately, the event is over. God does not dwell high up on the mountain, but among God’s people; the disciples and Jesus will go back down to proceed with God’s mission of divine love for the beloved; Jesus and the disciples will minister in the valleys and not be secluded up high on the mountain tops.[8]

Peter follows Jesus when he is called; Peter follows Jesus up the mountain; Peter will also follow Jesus down the mountain. [9] But this relationship is not one-sided. Jesus called Peter because Jesus loved Peter; Jesus lifted up Peter when he fell on his face in fear on the mountain top because he loved him; and, Jesus will accompany him down into the valley because he loved him. Be raised up, says Jesus, and be not afraid…because I am with you, now and always, up on the mountain and down low in the valley, and where you go I will go too, now and always.

This event that merely altered Jesus’s appearance ultimately changed Peter inside and out;[10] Peter (and the other disciples with him) come to know that Love goes with them, up the mountain and back down.

Conclusion

Beloved, make note that Jesus did not stay up on the mountain, kicking it with Elijah and Moses. Peter was not able to build those tents, let alone finish his thought before God sent everyone back down. God is known among God’s people, not up high and separated from them. Jesus shows us the love of God by descending the mountain to be with us even if it means he goes to his demise. Yes, there is great glory and affirmation at the top of the mountain, but what would any of it mean if it stayed there? God comes low: in spirit hovering over the darkness, in creative words bursting forth in life and light, in fire and clouds, in the law, through the prophets, and in the love of Christ.

So, beloved, God so loved the world and you! that God came back down the mountain. God so loves you that you are beckoned to ascend the mountain so that you can come back down with Christ and share in the divine summons and mission of spreading love and life in the world to those who are deprived of such love and life. You are so called to be changed by this encounter with God in Christ that you can do nothing else but follow Jesus up the mountain and back down.

[1] Translation mine unless otherwise noted.

[2] Anna Case-Winters Matthew Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible Eds Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher. Louisville, KY: WJK, 2015. 212. “The vision (v. 9) we call the transfiguration takes place on the ‘high mountain’ which has traditionally been associated with revelation and profound religions experience. Symbolically, it is a place where heaven touches earth.”

[3] Case-Winters, Matthew, 212. Tons of overlap with Moses and Jesus in Matthew, “This association is made more prominent in chapter 17 where there are at least seven points of parallel between Jesus in the transfiguration and Moses at Sinai.”

[4] Case-Winters, Matthew, 213. “These multiple associations reinforce identity of Jesus with Moses and affirm Jesus’ role as the authoritative interpreter of the law.”

[5] R. T. France The Gospel of Matthew The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Gen. Ed Joel B. Green. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007. 645. “But this pericope reinforces the perception of the careful reader of ch. 2 that Jesus comes, as Moses did long ago, to fulfill God’s purpose of deliverance for his people. At the same time, he is also clearly marked out as a greater than Moses, both by the heavenly voice which speaks of him alone in terms never used of Moses, and by the fact that Moses and Elijah soon disappear, leaving Jesus alone to carry Out the final act of deliverance.”

[6] France, Matthew, 647. “The visual ‘transformation’ is not so much a physical alteration an added dimension of glory; it is the same Jesus, but now with an awesome brightness ‘like the sun’ and ‘like light.’ Or, one might better say, with the of earthly conditions temporarily stripped away, so that the true nature of God’s ‘beloved Son’ (v. 5) can for once be seen.”

[7] Case-Winters, Matthew, 213. “’There is an association with the tents or tabernacles that housed the ark of the covenant in the wilderness wanderings. God’s presence in the Holy of Holies in the Temple was also identified is the shekinah.”

[8] Case-Winters, Matthew, 214. “Peters proposal, however, is wrong-footed on several counts, as what follows his offer will make clear. There will be no dwelling upon the mountain top in ‘spiritual retreat’ from the world. Jesus and the disciples are very soon thereafter called to come down from the high places and minister in the valley where great need awaits them.”

[9] Case-Winters, Matthew, 215. “In this story the ascent to the heights of the mountain and “peak” experiences of encounter with God is followed by descent into suffering and service in the valley of need where God’s calling beckons. Ascent and descent are inextricably bound for the followers of Jesus. Just as they were for him.”

[10] France, Matthew, 643. “If what happened there provided Jesus himself with reassurance for his coming mission, we are told nothing of this; it is the disciples’ Christological understanding which is being enhanced, and the discussion as they return down the mountain (vv. 10-13) similarly focuses entirely on their grasp of the eschatological timetable.”

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